Terrorist Snipers, their Media Allies and
Defense of Democracy:Last Part of an Interview by Heinz
Dieterich with Venezuelan Armed Forces Commander General Raúl BaduelTranslated with an
Introductory Note by Toni Solo www.dissidentvoice.org
March 30, 2004

enator
John Kerry's recent aggressive declaration on Venezuela confirms that
whoever is in the White House, Venezuela will remain subject to intervention
from the United States government and its allies. The role of the Venezuelan
army in the face of this reality will be crucial to defend peace and
democracy in Venezuela. The first part of this interview, published earlier,
covered issues of US intervention, relations with Colombia, and efforts by
the government's opponents to create an atmosphere of crisis inside the
country. In this final part of the interview, General Raúl Baduel, head of
the Venezuelan army explains to Heinz Dieterich efforts to combat terrorist
snipers and the role of media manipulation. Baduel ends with a call for
respect for democracy and peaceful coexistence. The original interview is
dated March 9th 2004.

HD: How can you
neutralize the snipers?

RB: First I want to
discuss the manipulation of this matter by many news media that focus on
images of the behaviour of the State security forces. Often those news media
have wanted to present this issue as an abuse by the security forces,
searching buildings and residences and above all acting on the offensive and
not as a result of a necessity of the State.

When shots are fired which
are judged to come from snipers, it's necessary to neutralize those snipers.
And one of the ways to do so is to enter the buildings where they are to be
found so as to arrest them. So the aim has been to manipulate the issue of
the need to maintain public order as if it were a matter of human rights
abuses by the security forces.

HD: Last night a
sniper fired about ten shots as the State TV (VTV) building, wounding a
national guardsman. How, in police or military terms is it possible to
neutralize those snipers in an urban environment like Caracas?

RB: It's complex. We
have deployed aircraft, above all helicopters, that make periodic
reconnaissance flights carrying counter-snipers with orders to neutralize
the other snipers.

However, it's a very
complicated task. You know this city very well. Caracas has many confined
spaces with very high buildings and everything indicates that these people
act deliberately to cause widespread damage and generate a kind of
systematic and selective terrorism, seeking at the same time to call into
question the policy of the security forces.

HD: Are army patrols
by special units against these snipers not necessary? Or have they not been
considered? Or is it not desirable to involve the army?

RB: In the region
around the capital units of the armed forces, represented principally by
units of the National Guard - but also with members of the Military Police –
have been engaging in patrols as a preventive measure aiming to dissuade
those who seek to carry out this kind of action.

This policy of the armed
forces has a constitutional basis. The Constitution of the Bolivarian
Republic gave us the authority to guarantee the independence and sovereignty
of the nation and to ensure the integrity of its geographic space. This
carries three fundamental tasks: 1) military defence; 2) cooperation in the
maintenance of internal order, and 3) active participation in the nation's
development.

The second of these tasks
is the legal constitutional basis for the actions of all components of the
armed forces to guarantee the country's internal order.

HD: Do the armed
forces have the arms necessary for this type of problem, for example night
vision equipment, or do they lack that technology?

RB: No, we have that
technology and we have personnel trained and competent in those tasks

Of course, as I've said,
they are complex tasks. In many cases when a sniper or one of these
terrorists gets in place to carry out armed attacks, he must have some
minimal support from people there who facilitate his escape from the area.

And since we respect
constitutional and legal rules, making a collective search in a building has
been found to be very complicated. By which I mean that in many cases a
perverse use has been made of rights guaranteed in our constitution.

HD: Am I wrong to
say that in any country in the world the police would immediately search a
building if a sniper assisted by people in that building tried to murder
someone?

RB: No. We
see in the news that in countries like the United States the direct use of
firearms to neutralize someone if that person fails to obey police
instruction, resulting in the death of that potential aggressor. We have
seen that many times.

HD: And why does
that not happen here?

RB: Because our
government and authorities are well aware that they ought not to fall into
that trap. Because as I have already said, there are plenty of news outlets
here who report the actions of forces of law and order in a very skewed way
and thus seek to exploit an image of those forces of public order as
aggressors in violation of human rights.

HD: To recap, you
then see no danger in the subversive project underway, that one might call,
assuming you agree, a third coup d'état.

RB: I try to use
these terms carefully. You will remember that the Supreme Court judged that
in April 2002 there was no coup d'état in this country. That judgment left
us in a situation that is quite sui generis because now Venezuela has
the exceptionally rare privilege of writing new theory on events of this
kind with a brand new glossary of terms. We can call what happened neither a
coup d'état, nor an insurrection, nor a conspiracy because none of those
cases fit the judgment of the Supreme Court.

However, if we use the
terminology that is common usage in international affairs, then it's obvious
that here we are undergoing a continuous coup détat with corresponding
deliberate objectives.

When I address this issue
with military personnel I explain that perhaps we still do not have
sufficient information or perspective to state as a fact that possibly what
we are involved in is a new type of societal war – analyzed by, among
others, Alvin Toffler in his book The War of the Future – in which it
is not strictly necessary for two conventional forces to face off against
each other in a theater of war, but rather that a climate of tension and
destabilization is generated through psychological operations so as to do
away with a legal and legitimately constituted government which has
repeatedly submitted to electoral processes.

There is no doubt at all
that here we have news media that we soldiers call authentic vehicles of
psychological warfare.

HD: How can you do
more to defend the bolivarian process as Commander in Chief of the army than
when you were head of the Fourth Armoured Division?

RB: Its been said I
was given this position practically to neutralize me, that the position is
merely administrative.

While it may well be true
that the operational doctrine of the Venezuelan army insists that the
primary task of the head of some component, in this case the army itself,
consists of organizing, equipping and training the land component, and in
the case of its operational use, putting it under the orders of an
operational command, my superiors also share that authority and in fact I
have in the past received orders that grant me operational command over the
land forces.

So I've got used to taking
criticism or attempts to undermine my respect and prestige within the armed
forces, I don't waste time or effort thinking about such trivia

Right now, I can say that
our sacred mission is set out in the letter and spirit of the national
Bolivarian constitution and we see ourselves daily more cohesive in terms of
that spirit.

There was a group of
comrades in arms who stepped aside from their duty – motivated either by
greed or the desire for power - and gathered in a public square, the Plaza
Francia in Altamira here in the capital, and proclaimed to the four winds
that 80 per cent of the armed forces supported them – deceiving all those
who believed in them.

But the proof of the
cohesion of the armed forces and their commitment to preserve the supreme
interests and high mission of the Venezuelan State is categorical and on
that there is not the least doubt.

HD: Is there
anything you want to add?

RB: Only to say I am
very pleased to have had this meeting with you and to add my voice as a
citizen and soldier to demand of all those sectors that think violence is
the way forward that they understand the great majority in our country are
peace loving and long for these conflicts to be dealt with through dialogue
and democracy. I'll take advantage of this chance, yet again, to call for
confraternity and peaceful coexistence in our bolivarian homeland.

This interview was first
published in Spanish in
www.rebelion.org, March 21, 2004: “Habla el Comandante del Ejército
Venezolano, General Raúl Baduel (tercera y última parte)” by Heinz Dieterich.